The official website of the upcoming anime adaptation of Yasuo Ohtagaki’s Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt manga has revealed more details about the upcoming series. The site has revealed that the show will run for a total of 4 episodes; it has also revealed the main cast, staff and a new extended promotional video.

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt will consist of 4 episodes, which will be only available online via Bandai’s service. The episode will unlock on December 25th at 12:00pm JST and will run for 18 minutes. There will also be a 10 minute documentary bundled with the episode’s purchase, which will be sold together for ¥500 (~ $US4). There will also be a digital rental option for ¥250 (~ US$2). The anime itself will be rendered and available in 4K resolution, the first anime in the franchise to do so.

The first members of the anime’s main cast have been revealed with their character designs and are as follows:

Yuuichi Nakamura (Kyousuke Kousaka in Oreimo) will voice Io Fleming

Toa Yukinari (Casca from Berserk: The Golden Age Arc ) as Claudia Peer

The first mecha designs for the anime were revealed on the website as well:

Full Armour Gundam

GM

A new 90 second extended promotional video was also revealed:

Here is the previous PV:

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt is a manga written and illustrated by Yasuo Ohtagaki. The series is a spin-off to the main Gundam series and is a side story set in 0079. The manga began in 2012 being serialized in Shogakukan Big Comic Superior magazine, where to date a total of 6 volumes have been released.

Gundam is one of Japan’s largest and most iconic franchise. The franchise is mostly set in a science fiction future that focuses on giant mechanical robots. The franchise was created by Hajime Yatate, a group of animators from the studio Sunrise, lead by Yoshiyuki Tomino. It began in 1979 with the release of the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam, though while the anime itself did not receive high praise and viewings, the eventual gunpla models from Bandai launched the series into popularity. Since then, there has been a plethora of anime series, OVAs, films, manga, light novels, games and merchandise based on the franchise. It has become an iconic symbol of Japanese pop culture where Bandai make over 50 billion yen per fiscal year on the models alone.

Here is the synopsis of the series from MAL:

The Universal Century began with mankind moving its burgeoning population into outer space. The year is UC0079. The cluster of colonies furthest from the Earth, Side 3, proclaim themselves the Principality of Zeon and launch a war of independence against the Earth Federation. Now, it is nearly one year since the war broke out. In the “Thunderbolt sector”, a reef section of space where a large quantity of wreckage from battleships and destroyed space colonies from the war lies, a violent battle plays out as the Earth Federation Forces set their sights on recapturing the Zeon controlled sector.

An anime adaptation of Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt is currently in production with the first episode being streamed online on December 25th. Further details about the remaining 3 episodes and the services it will be available on, will be revealed at a later date.